Stuart wins grudge match in states
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Any motivation the Stuart Country Day School basketball team needed beyond the fact they were playing a state tournament game came six days earlier with a 55-46 loss to Princeton Day School.
”We were fired up,” Stuart junior Diamond Lewis said of Wednesday’s opening-round state Prep B tournament game against those same Panthers on Wednesday. “We knew we had to win this game and we knew we had to come hard. We were determined to win tonight.”
In a game that went back and forth most of the day, the Tartans emerged with a 48-44 win, earning them a shot at top-seeded Rutgers Prep in the state Prep B semifinals on Feb. 22. It was the third meeting of the season between the two teams, with Stuart winning, 47-39, earlier in the season before the Panthers won last week’s rematch.
”I think maybe we were a little nervous because they beat us the last time,” said Lewis, who finished with a game-high 29 points. “We had to play with intensity like we did in the second half. We had a couple of runs and we kept the momentum going on our side.
”Ever since we lost we were talking about that game. It was better to do it in Prep Bs and knock them out.”
The Tartans, who improved to 11-8 with the win, have a busy schedule coming up. In addition to playing in the Prep B tournament they’ll open play in the Mercer County Tournament on Tuesday against West Windsor-Plainsboro North.
”We did it last year and we did pretty well,” Lewis said of playing in two tournaments at once. “We just focus on one game at a time, day by day. This is a win to build on. We just have to keep it going. We have confidence against the teams from the CVC. The win over Notre Dame was a huge confidence boost.
”In the Prep B, it is always a tough game against Rutgers Prep. But we just try to play our hardest.”
In addition to the 29 points from Lewis, Amber Bowman chipped in with 10 points and Jasmine Smarr added seven. Sarah Schulte scored just two points, but had 10 rebounds and played solid defense against PDS center Tiffany Patterson.
”We started off a little slow and the offense wasn’t running well,” Stuart coach Tony Bowman said. “But in the third and fourth quarters we picked it up. Our defense was solid the whole time. I thought Sarah did a great job on Tiff with help from Bowman and Jules Healy. That was where they hurt us last time. I think we might have out-rebounded them this time.”
The Panthers were hindered by foul trouble. Patterson picked up two early fouls and spent time on the bench, while leading scorer Janie Smukler also had to sit with foul trouble in the second half.
”A big issue was we had a hard time getting into our flow,” said PDS coach Jessica Katz, whose team fell to 9-8 with one game left to play this season. “And part of that was because we had to sit Tiff for a while in the beginning for foul trouble and we had to sit Janie for a while with foul trouble. We never sit Janie. So having to sit your two leading scorers like that makes it a little more challenging.”
Smukler led the Panthers with 15 points, while Sarah Godwin added 13. Patterson had seven points and 13 rebounds.
”At the end of the game today, as opposed to most of our games in the latter half of the of the season, it felt like we had a young team at the end,” said Katz, who returns seven of the eight players who suited up on Wednesday. “But that being said, they were working really hard and doing pretty much everything we asked of them. It’s just those little things at the end.”
PDS kept battling back from six to eight point deficits, but in the end the Tartans’ experience may have been the difference. For the Panthers, the future certainly looks bright for such a young team.
”We’ve had a good season,” Katz said. “We’re 9-8. We have one more game. Knowing we can develop the talent that we have and these girls coming back will have more confidence in one another. We’ll have some off-season time to work on some things we need to work on. It’s really encouraging for next year.”
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The Princeton Day School boys opened the state Prep B tournament with an 81-68 win over Collegiate on Wednesday. The 10th-seeded Panthers were led by Kenny Holzhammer with 33 points. A.J. Rubin had 18 points and Joe Rogers added 12 for PDS, which will play at second-seeded Pennington in the quarterfinals.

